Hotline Zootopia: Act One
by Spengi
Summary: Judy Hopps has worked hard to reach the status of "detective" in the ZPD. Despite scorn from colleagues and criminals alike, she has taken a homicide case and is after "Jacket", a deranged canine serial killer. After an investigation leaves her injured, she finds herself submerged in a world of crime she never expected. Rated M for mild language and gory violence.
_HOTLINE_

 _ZOOTOPIA:_

 _Act I_

It was a regular Friday night for Jacket. His back ached from sleeping on a pile of trash and dirty laundry again. His worn letterman jacket was soaked, inside and out by the rainforest district's artificial rain. His head ached, whatever he was hung over on was not passing well. He stood there, a single, dark figure in the parking lot of a tree-side hotel for some time. Elephant's shrill voice suddenly sounded in his head.

"So… What's the plan, guys?"

"...We're thinking. Hush, you." Replied Wolf. Pig suddenly piped in with the terrible, albeit amusing idea of driving a stolen car through the lobby and burning the place down from the inside out.

"That's awful, Pig. Do you want us _all_ to die?" said Elephant in a drawn out, patronizing tone. Pig's answer was as sociopathic and unhelpful as usual. One of Cheetah's faint snarls turned them silent. Quiet, quiet, Jacket's thinking. Jacket's ears twitched. His eyes fixated on a large cat pushing through the hotel's double doors, casting light onto the asphalt. Big cat, smug grin, jogging suit. Nocturnal type, probably just starting his "day". Certainly not of any interest to Jacket, but he'd be seen if he stayed put.

Wolf's sly voice chimed in. "Guys ... How about we just try the front door? Waltz into the lobby, ride the elevator up to the third floor and pay our 'guy' a visit. What's to stop us? It's Friday night in the rainforest district, no one's gonna care about a freak in a mask. If we're fast, and we _are_ fast, we can get in, make a mess and leave before the badge arrives. That sound good?"

Wolf's idea was simple, but it was more sound than the needlessly complex ideas Elephant was spit-balling. "Fine." Elephant agreed, but Pig thought the idea was not messy enough, so they decided that Jacket wouldn't finish the job without opening at least two arteries.

"They could have guns." Elephant warned.

"This scum? Here? Not likely." Wolf said.

Cheetah growled. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

And Jacket went.

Officer Judy Hopps stared at the papers on her desk in disbelief with her paws on her ears. The chief shut the door behind him, having left her with a "Hopps, get this one sorted out already! That maniac is still out there!". Yeah, thanks chief. But _another_ one? This made six in two weeks! It wasn't that she was being lax with the case, it was noon, she'd been at it since 4 AM. Almost every day since her assignment on the case had been like this. She groaned and rubbed her forehead. It had been hard climbing the ranks and earning the chief's trust by herself, what with being a rabbit and all. She smiled. Rabbit. That used to be a setback in the department's eyes, but after a track record of fast open-and-shut cases, she had proven to be one of the ZPD's fastest and most resourceful detectives.

And now she was solving a homicide case! Well, "solving" was a loose term. The perpetrator seemed hell bent on giving her the slip every single time she thought she'd found a new lead. She sighed. The case, right. "Jacket" was a medium sized canine of some variety with an estimated body-count of thirty and only a pawful of eyewitness and CCTV sightings in his two week spree. The only consistent thing that the killer left behind was bodies. In fact, "Jacket" was only a nickname given for always appearing in the same letterman jacket, with a mask. Every time he was sighted, he vanished. She sighed again. Then she opened the manilla folder, and sifted through the details. The Grapevine Hotel had been hit around midnight, four animals had been killed in various, terrible ways. One had their throat slit. There was not a single eyewitness, save for the slightly drunken receptionist who recalls loaning a room to a "party going fellow with a university jacket", but not much else.

She began looking through the names of the deceased. Her tired eyes landed on a Mr. Jo Lang, a forty-eight year old panda and journalist, he'd helped Judy with an insurance fraud case last year. Mr. Lang had admitted to being contacted by shady animals in the past, but had never actually had any run-ins with them. His death was particularly striking, because he was allegedly "on the verge of something big." He never said what it was. Did someone _want_ him dead? She'd have to look into it.

As far as she could tell, the victims had no correlation, except that they were all on the third floor that night. None of them had any previous record with the law. Their families were distraught, and the ZPD was very sorry and doing everything they could of course, but they knew nothing of one another. She grimaced as she glanced through the crime scene photos. Judy felt her heart race. The images were horrific. She had to look away. Then, she found her eyes wandering to the framed photo of her parents on her desk. This was her job, wasn't it? Protecting innocent animals from animals like "Jacket" and the awful things they do to society.

"This is what you signed on for, Judy…" she told herself under her breath. Jacket was still out there, it was up to her to put this monster behind bars, no matter how hard it was. The Lang residence would be a good place to start for the day. She had another coffee on her way out.

Jacket cursed as he kicked an empty beer carton. Ring, dammit! The phone lay silent. "Patience." said Elephant serenely. "You've already got this week's package. It could be a few more days."

"But I'm hungry _now!_ " Jacket growled. Pig sided with him on this one. Wolf spoke up. "Hush, you two. We'll get what's coming to us."

"...The cameras." hissed Cheetah.

Jacket rushed over to a line of CRT televisions showing various black and white camera displays that covered the perimeter of his shabby slum apartment. He scanned the flickering lines for anything out of the ordinary. A van drove by silently. He nodded slowly.

"All clear. Thank God" said Wolf.

"Why do you insist on checking those every five minutes?" Elephant wheezed.

Wolf groaned. "Because if we _don't,_ someone will find us here."

"When has anyone ever found us?" Elephant complained.

"It could happen…"

Pig reminded them that if anyone actually found them, they'd all wind up dead, headless.

The neighbors next door started shouting, and not a humourous shoutfest, something over drugs and possibly a gun. Wolf groaned again, Pig suggested a cluster of nine millimeter rounds through the wall in a quick sweep. Jacket decided to drown them out with a pair of headphones and relaxation. He dug through a pile of garbage for syringe. When he found one, Elephant gasped.

"Put that down, that stuff will kill us!"

Wolf sighed. "Can it. It's better than sitting through that garbage next door. I hate the other animals in this dump."

Pig was disappointed in there not being more, Cheetah said nothing.

It had probably been hours since he flopped down. His reddened eyes slid open at the sound of a phone ringing. He snapped upright. Calls meant packages! He bounded over to the old landline set and picked up. At first there was static, then a low voice spoke up.

"... Jacket?"

Everyone was excited, Jacket had to tell them all to calm down before speaking. "Yes, I'm here."

"We've got another assignment for you."

His tail wagged. "Y-yeah?"

"Mm hmm. This one's a little different than what you're used to, but I think you can handle it." The voice continued talking. "...There's a warehouse in the outskirts of the central district, long building off Third and Creekside. Green roof, by the spill way. Know the place?"

Jacket did indeed.

"... Good. I'm afraid I can't explain very much to you, but let's just say a non-beneficial party has trespassed on some material interests of ours that we were forced to leave unchecked. Time is of the essence here. Get in, clear the place out. Leave _no one._ Understand?"

Pig did indeed. Jacket hung up and excitedly stumbled over to a locker containing various masks. They argued over which one to take for some time. He chose an antique plague-doctor mask because Cheetah told him to. Also, Wolf liked it when the beak tickled their whiskers. He put on the mask and his letterman, and then shouldered a sawed-off shotgun with a machete for a bayonet. Pig chose the gun, it was the messiest and loudest thing that he could find. This was going to be fun.

Judy's investigation of the Lang residence had not come up dry. Mr. Lang lived alone in a lovely eastern-styled house on the edge of the city, full of gilded wood furniture and… bamboo. When she arrived, the house looked to have been left in an orderly fashion, like he had just left for a vacation. Save for a couple unpaid bills and some dirty laundry, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Mr. Lang checked out. No suspicious activities, and all his confirmed clients were clean, too. Judy, convinced that this was another dead end, turned to leave. She leaned against a table, and that's when her paw brushed over a notepad by the door. There were impressions on the paper from the torn sheet above. The tracings read "Drop off goods in unmarked package. Red section, twelfth row. Riverbed Storage."

Lucky break, it may even dig up a lead on Jacket! She found the place, a big warehouse on the far side of the city. It's ownership had changed paws several times in the last dozen years before the building was condemned last spring. Judy parked her squad car and bounded up to the chained bay doors. If she were anything larger than a rabbit, she'd have had a difficult time squeezing through. The building smelled like old concrete and wood shavings, roof panels were rusted through and beams of light shone brilliantly into the dusty rafters. Judy turned on her flashlight and swept the two-story high shelves, which were covered in dusty boxes of varying sizes.

"Hmm. What were you trying to hide, Lang…" she said to herself, quietly. The shelves were conveniently color coded. There was green section, blue section, and red section, each had thirty rows. She happened upon the red section and began poking around. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, there was a lot in here that could qualify as "unmarked package". Her sensitive ears twitched. There was a loud crash in the distance, it made her jump. "H-hello?" she called out.

A second, quieter crash sounded through the dust. She nervously began heading that direction. "Hello? ZPD!" A rusted barrel rolled across the aisle. Her tranquilizer gun was in her paws in a half-second. She sighed. What was she doing? In all likelihood, she was wasting her time. How would this old, dusty storage complex lead her back to Jacket? Lang had probably stored some personal belongings here. She shook her head and turned around. She suddenly had a great view of the baseball bat swung at her head. Her lightning-fast reflexes saved her from a major concussion, the bat caught the tips of her ears and made them sting. Her attacker was a large cat in a black jacket. She swung a kick at his ankles and knocked him off balance, which gave her enough time to slide under a shelf and out the other side. Judy readied her tranquilizer gun and pointed it across the wood slats, at more empty shelves. No cat. She let out a panicked shriek when bullets (the lead kind) sparked off the floor behind her. The gunshots were silenced. She took aim at the shooter in the distance and darted him. More bullets landed dangerously close from somewhere else. She bolted down the twelfth row as fast as her rabbit haunches could carry her.

"Oh God, what have you gotten yourself into now?" she thought as she ran. A round plinked off the girder beside her. She flinched. She'd always figured getting shot at was part of the job… but she'd never been shot at. Was _this_ what it was like? It was kind of exciting, in an adrenaline rush-ey run-for-your-life sort of way. Two more rounds popped on the steel around her. She was reaching for her radio when she suddenly found herself skidding along the floor, her last step did not carry her weight. And that was because a round had blown a hole through her left leg. She let out the awful scream that all rabbits make when in pain, and it did hurt terribly. The floor was already becoming slick with blood. Judy groaned and gritted her teeth, hunching over to try to stop the bleeding with her paws.

There was a sigh from above. "Wrong place, wrong time, friend." said the cat from before, smugly. He kicked her radio transmitter away from her paws and smashed it.

"Are you stuck here _alone_ , little bunny? That's too bad. I do hope that someone comes looking for you."

She tried desperately to crawl away. The cat laughed. "Where are you going? I'm sorry, my cottontail friend, but it's over…"

A coyote came up behind them, telling the cat that they'd heard the commotion. The cat gestured to the wounded rabbit on the floor. The coyote seemed troubled.

"How'd she find us?"

"Don't know." said the cat. But we sure as hell don't want any more fuzz finding her now."

"Well, what are we gonna do with her?"

"Eh, take her to the closet and finish the job... But first, find out what she knows about us. We don't want more of a mess here."

The coyote nodded. He smacked Judy upside the head with a board, and hoisted her over his shoulder.

"You're the boss."

Jacket arrived at Riverbed Storage. It was indeed as he remembered it. He casually strolled up to the barbed wire fence under the glaring sun and entered through a hole, whistling. "Look at that…" Elephant said. There were a line of black SUVs parked out front. They were all empty. "Looks like the party's already here!" said Wolf. Pig complained, it wasn't a party until lots of blood had been spilled. "Doors." Cheetah said, Jacket looked through a tinted SUV window. A hippo wearing a black jacket and shades had just barely installed himself by the bay doors, filling his claws. There was what looked like a gun on his belt. Wolf scoffed. "... A sentry? Wipe this guy and let's go."

"Oh yeah, let's mess this place _up_." Wolf said. Pig cursed a little and demanded noisy carnage. Cheetah silenced him and told Jacket to dispatch the sentry without setting off the others. Jacket found a long shard of broken glass on the ground. That'd do. He stepped into the open and tapped his gun against the ground. The guard looked up slowly. "...who the hell are you-" he froze.

"J-Jacket! Oh no, no, no! Stop _right_ there!"

Jacket smiled. The guard tried to reach for his gun, Jacket threw the shard and staked his trigger paw to the door. He shrieked and tried to jerk it free, which only made the bleeding worse. Jacket began stepping towards him.

He continued to struggle. "H-hey now... Jacket…M-Maybe we can work something out…" his voice trembled. "Do you want money?"

Jacket drew the guard's silent pistol and shot him in the head. Twice. His body crumpled to the ground with a thud. Jacket then shot the shabby padlock off the chain between the doors. He pressed open the doors and marched in. He moved swiftly through the rows of boring shelves, keeping to the shadows. He heard voices, so he scampered up a shelf and hunkered down behind some boxes and observed. There were a moose and bear in black jackets carrying a metal box, and two predatory cats holding guns. They were all larger, stronger looking animals.

Jacket tuned out the others and went with Pig's idea. He thought it would be "cool" if he slid through the shelf and squeezed off a shell in mid air. He did, and the heart-jarring blast coated the bear with shreds of the moose. His ears rung, he smiled. He landed on his feet and pumped his gun, waiting a split second to see who would finish their swears and "It's Jacket!"s first and draw a weapon. A tiger behind him attempted to smash his brains out with a pry bar. Jacket deflected with his bayonet and weaved behind him, then jammed his blade through the base of his spine. By now, the other three (the tiger had crept up behind Jacket) had their weapons in paw. He hesitated for a moment, then sprayed chunks of his paralyzed victim all over the others with a shotgun blast. This was not something they expected and they were… put off. Jacket had enough breathing room to put two shells into the pair with guns, each. He sighted the last one, the bear, holding a thick metal chain. Click. He'd fired all six shells, and didn't have the time, nor did Pig have the patience, to pat himself down for more. The hulking animal charged towards him, swatting aside his attempted stab. Jacket gritted his teeth and leapt backwards, skidding across the bare concrete.

"Throw the knife." said Cheetah calmly.

He wrenched the belt/duct tape combo holding the machete on free and grasped the blade's handle. He threw it with a wicked spin, and it dug deeply into the bear's chest. The animal sputtered and coughed, his trembling paws tried to pull the thing free. Jacket was on his shoulders in less than a second, and began beating him over the head with his empty shotgun. Several redundant blows and a lot of blood later, and he was dead. He dropped his shotgun and stole a pair of silenced pistols off the floor. He then used one to dispatch a few bat-toting thugs with rapid bodyshots, three pops a piece. Jacket was covered in less than trace amount of giblets at this point. He could hear footsteps coming towards him. He stood in the center aisle scanning for more movement. Pig suddenly began laughing hysterically.

"Stop that!" Wolf said. "Jacket, whatever you're gonna do, do it now."

"Oh! I know. Head for the higher ground and sweep them out, Jacket." Elephant urged.

Jacket recovered his machete and hastily stashed the pistols in his pockets. He began meandering towards a stairway to the rafters. He felt a cool puddle under his feet. Splash, splish. He looked down.

Elephant seemed concerned. "Are we standing in blood?"

Wolf groaned back. "We're always standing in blood."

"No, no. I don't think this was our doing..."

Pig agreed. Jacket stared into the crimson pool, a blood spattered freak in a mask stared back. They smiled.

"Doesn't matter." Cheetah snarled. "Keep going."

Jacket crept up the stairs and began scanning the rows for movement. There was a shout from below.

"Up there!"

His focused snapped to a wolf raising a pistol towards him from an aisle across the section. Jacket ended him with a single pistol round. Pig commended him on his accuracy. A moment later, a bullet whizzed past his ears. Jacket vaulted the railing and took off running across the shelves. With his machete in both paws, he leapt down and parted a thug's skull in two. Jacket quickly swung up and carved several deep gashes into another, pushed the corpse out of the way and had at yet another. The floor and shelves were coated in hot blood in seconds. Pig squealed in delight. A shot from across the aisle landed in his shoulder, Jacket yelped.

Wolf spoke up. "Ugh… Dive behind cover and pull that thing out."

Jacket begrudgingly did so, droplets of his own blood were dotting the floor. He wiped another goon out with tightly clustered shots. The receiver locked back, so he switched the gun's magazine with the other and re-chambered. A honey badger bounded towards Jacket's shotgun on the floor a ways away. It took six rounds to slow the little prick down and three more to put him under. Even then he was unsure. He stepped in cold blood again, this time he was too curious. There was a trail streaked across the floor, headings towards a custodial closet. He bounded over to the door and turned the handle. Everyone gasped at the pretty little rabbit lying on the floor inside. There was a bleeding entry wound on her leg, just below her haunch. For some reason, she was wearing a police uniform, and a badge. Wolf spoke concernedly. "Is… Is she a cop?"

"That _is_ a police uniform I see." said Elephant.

"But she's a bunny…" droned Wolf.

"I can see that. What should we do with her, guys?" asked Elephant.

Pig was spouting off various things that they could do to her, then things that they could mix up with the chemical compounds stored around their heads, Jacket tuned him out. Elephant and Wolf began arguing.

"I dunno. But we are _not_ taking her with us." answered Wolf.

"Why not? Isn't she innocent? Aren't we on the same team?"

"Same team, yeah? And what do we do when little bunny-cop wakes up and radios for help? Do you think we can really outrun a little bunny-cop…"

"Her radio's gone… She's cut off. That blood was cold, if she'd radioed for backup it'd be here by now."

"Good. Let's leave her to bleeding then."

"But that's so wrong! She probably didn't know what she was getting into! We can't just let her die in here..."

"Yes we can, watch. C'mon Jacket, let's go. We're not taking the bunny-cop."

Cheetah's voice startled them all. "...Patch that up."

Jacket quickly tied his belt around her leg as a tourniquet and wrapped the wound with a clean rag.

"We're taking the bunny-cop." said Cheetah.

She weighed practically nothing, so he kept her over one shoulder. Wolf couldn't believe it, but he dare not argue with Cheetah.

"Get going." Cheetah snarled. Jacket did so.

Viktor "Vice" Cartan, the leopard in charge of this band of unpaid moving hands, was astounded. How was he, the best handler in Zootopia, stuck on this fetching job in charge of these slackjaws? More importantly, when had this "fetching" job ever involved Jacket? He had been paid to move drugs, not watch newbloods get slaughtered. And then there was the bunny. She'd found them here, was she alone? Did she have a partner? He sure hoped not. He sighed and finished loading his seventh round into his gleaming silver revolver and stepped into the open. The twitchy little fox bastard darted between the center aisle again. Vice squeezed off a round and missed him by a tail. Some boxes exploded into moldy papers. He squinted and fired two more shots, he swore Jacket ducked under the second. Darwin, his left hand coyote, came running up to him, a smoking pistol in paw. "B-boss... " he wheezed. "We're getting slaughtered! I can't tell how many there are in the bui-"

"One. There's _one_. His name is Jacket. And he's here to wipe us out to the last mammal." said Vice solemnly. He returned to cover behind a shelf. "Did you get anything out of little cottontail?"

"N-no…"

"Did you finish her off?"

Several silenced gunshots popped in the distance, followed by screams and a sickly slicing sound.

"I left her with Hutch…"

Vice pointed at a dead honey badger angrily. "Hutch is dead. _Dead_."

"T-then who's guarding…"

It was at that exact moment that Jacket exploded out of a shelf with a pistol, a rabbit, and a machete. He was covered in blood. Darwin raised his gun and winged Jacket on the arm twice. Darwin's own arms were suddenly shot off. Vice's gun flew out of his hands, replaced by stinging fingers and broken claws. Little bastard shot his own gun. He grabbed his bat and swung it, it cracked in half as Jacket blocked it with his machete. Jacket leapt up and pistol whipped him in the head with a staggering amount of force, Vice was knocked to the floor. He opened his eyes a split second later, which gave him a great view of Jacket holding pointing his revolver at him. Jacket glanced at the chambers, then put two rounds into Vice's chest and shot off both of his ears, Vice was still. Jacket apparently decided to keep the gun and waltzed out the front door with it.

Vice was fortunate enough to have a bulletproof vest under his shirt. His ears screamed with hot pain, but after a minute or so he sat up. His eyes widened. Every single one of the poor sods who had rode with him was dead. Every last one of them, all slaughtered by the most dangerous mammal in the city. And then… He sighed. And then there was the matter of cleanup. The bodies, the blood, every single spent casing. The smell. He slowly climbed to his feet and sighed. He made a call to some "friends."

"Vice here. I need a team of 'custodians' at Riverbed ASAP. No no, this isn't something that we can let the police cleanup."

They asked him for a reason. "Jacket" was enough. They promised him a full cleanup job within 24 hours. He hung up and swore that he was going to tear out every single bit of that freak's scrawny hide himself, if it killed him.

Judy came to on a ragged couch. Her legs were propped up on a throw pillow and her head ached. Was it all a bad dream? The bandages around her leg told her no. She sat up, worried. She was in a small, grimy living room with tan carpet and cracked drywall. Her phone, badge, and tranquilizer gun were set on a three-legged coffee table in front of her.

"H-hello?" she said nervously, realizing her throat was parched. He ears raised in response to a sudden clattering in the opposite room. There was a moderate male's voice in.

"Is she awake?" it said, as if talking to someone else. Judy figured he was using a phone and waited patiently. "What do we do now? No, that's stupid! Fine! Fine."

"Hello?" she repeated.

There was more clattering. She swung her legs over and tried to stand up.

"No no no! Rabbit says don't move that leg!" the voice said frantically. In rushed a slim red fox wearing a black tank top and a… Bird mask? No, it twas the mask of a plague doctor, she'd seen one in a museum.

She was glancing down at her leg, with a paw on her aching head. "Who's rabbit?" she asked. "And... who are you?"

"I'm not sure actually. I guess Rabbit tells me to _save_ animals? I dunno. I haven't figured him out yet. Oh, and I cleaned your stuff off, it got a little bloody."

"Oh, erm. T-thanks."

Both paws were on her head now.

"Glass of water?" he said.

"Yes, that'd be lovely. Thanks." She noticed a brown and gold letterman jacket hanging on a doorknob. Letterman jacket. Her head ached terribly. It all slowly began to come back to her. The case. Jacket. Warehouse. Fox in a letterman. She looked up, her heart froze.

JACKET!

Oh God, how did she miss it? The descriptions matched him perfectly! She dove for her tranq gun and locked a dart into the receiver. Then she was on her feet, her leg felt stiff. Her cuffs were still on her belt, this would be her best shot. She hobbled over to the doorway as quickly and quietly as she could and gritted her teeth. One shot, one hyper-dangerous psychopath. She took a deep breath, thumbed the safety and popped the corner. Her dart landed in Jacket's neck, he was stooped over a cluttered kitchen sink. She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway smugly. It _was_ a nice shot. He flinched, the glass in his paws fell to the floor and shattered. Jacket then groaned, casually reached up, and pulled out the dart.

"You know, that stuff really isn't much fun. Fortunately, I've spent the last few years building up an immunity to paralytic agents."

Judy's heart raced. Now she'd done it. He reached back into the sink. She tripped while stumbling backwards, expecting a knife. Jacket calmly produced another glass, filled it with water and held it out to her.

"Glass of water?" He said casually.

"You're… you're _not_ going to kill me?" She asked.

Jacket looked confused, insulted even. "What? Why would I do that? After I went through all the trouble to drag you out of there you think I'd…" he sighed. "Yeah, you guys are right." he suddenly said as if talking to someone else. He set the glass down and looked back towards her.

"Better question, what were you doing in there?"

"Jo Lang." Judy rolled her paws into fists. "You killed him. He was just another innocent animal and you killed him, like all the others." She glared at him.

"Innocent? No, no little rabbit. Jo Lang was certainly not what you'd call an innocent panda." Judy raised her ears, her heart pounded.

"W-what?"

"Okay, you're right, maybe we should tell her." Jacket said, as if talking to someone else. He sighed. "Lang was a huge name in police misdirection. He liked to cook up cases to distract you guys from animals like the one that put a hole in your leg. At least, that's what they told me."

"Who's 'they'?" she asked.

A phone began to ring. Jacket smiled. "The ones who leave packages." He flinched. "... Sorry guys, should I not be telling her this? Okay."

He picked it up. Judy's sensitive ears could make out what the low, staticky voice was saying.

"... Your work at Riverbed is finished. And I must say, we are more than a little disappointed in you." Jacket's expression sank.

"W-what do you mean…"

"Leaving casings. Leaving blood. Leaving _survivors._ You left a gun. And don't even get me started on the damned cop. You'll be lucky if someone isn't completely tracing you right now. We're disappointed, Jacket. We thought better of you. Consider all future packages null and non-existent. Goodbye." The voice hung up. Jacket set the handset down slowly and looked at Judy.

"...Rabbit says it's not your fault. Not your fault." He suddenly drove a fist through the wall. "NOT YOUR FAULT!" Judy flinched. He sighed. "So that's it. No, no, Rabbit says we did the right thing." He chuckled.

"Yeah, when have we ever done the right thing."

He looked back at Judy, who was still on the floor, she looked more than a little confused. Judy hoped the chief had heard all of this, she had dialed him on her cell a few minutes ago and was holding her phone behind her back.

Chief Bogo stared at his phone, his heart was pounding in his chest. It was on speaker, six other officers were standing around him, listening in silently.

"Maybe I'll join the mob. They're always looking for new blood." Jacket's voice said, faintly. Judy's voice sounded less faint.

"Well, you could always turn yourself in…"

A pig rushed in the door, he nodded at the Chief. Hopps's phone had been tracked via GPS, a SWAT team was getting ready outside the station. Hostage rescue, lethal force authorized. Arresting Jacket was preferred but not required. He hung up and glanced around at the other officers.

"If he so much as twitches in your direction, drop him. Let's go."

 _\- End of Act I -_


End file.
